A big screen on screen Bristol's Imax to show film about its revival

It was the cinema screen that, despite being extremely big, a city forgot. Now, the feelgood tale of how Bristol's Imax screen was revived by a ragtag bunch of cinephiles with a DIY punk ethos is being told in a documentary that will, appropriately, get its premiere on the vast screen this month.

- Steven Morris

The Big Picture describes how the Imax opened at the turn of the century but was closed in 2007 when the finances didn't work out and was largely abandoned before its renaissance as a grassroots community cinema space.

The film's director, Arthur Cauty, said he had lived for 10 years in Bristol before even realising there was an Imax screen there. "I knew the building - a cylindrical, red-brick tower in the harbourside - but as it was right next to the aquarium, I'd assumed it was a giant fish tank.

"I found it strange that it hadn't been demolished or turned into something else. It was just left there. In the film I look at why it was forgotten and how it was revived."

Bristol is steeped in cinema history. It is the birthplace of Cary Grant and the motion picture pioneer William Friese-Greene as well as the home of the Wallace & Gromit creators, Aardman. Forty cinemas once operated in Bristol at the same time and countless films have been made there. Unesco has designated it a city of film.